Yes, housing is becoming very expensive here in Austin, and yes, it's happening quickly. But frankly, we are only starting to catch up to the realities of living in a city. Austin still remains much more affordable than many other desirable cities in the nation--New York, DC, San Francisco...even comparable cities like Denver, Portland, and Charlotte.

The article misses the mark on two points. First, business is not suffering here, nor will it magically leave an expensive city just because it's getting expensive. Again, look at any large growing city in the U.S. and you'll see that. And, using an anecdote of 100 jobs moving overseas as evidence of a mass exodus of industry from Austin? Let's get real about this.

Secondly, to claim that rents haven't been dropping in response to increased supply is another missed point. Sure, there seems to be construction happening all over town and therefore it appears that we are adding more apartments and houses than we need. But, we are FAR from reaching a balance between supply and demand. Until that changes (or if that balance were even able to be achieved given current zoning regulations), we will continue to see rents climb as long as there are people here willing to pay them.

So, your initial claim that building more density is doing nothing to lower rent? I promise you things would be worse without the new development. But we can all kiss the days of sub-$1000 average rents goodbye.